Obsession and What’s Making Us Happy

Summary

Pop Culture Happy Hour

Episode: Obsession and What’s Making Us Happy
Date: May 15, 2026
Hosts: Glenn Weldon, Jordan Cruciola, Monica Castillo
Guest: None (Main PCHH panel with rotating guest Jordan Cruciola)

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Episode Overview

This episode discusses the new horror film Obsession, directed by Curry Barker and starring Indy Navarrete and Michael Johnston. The panel delivers an in-depth review, exploring how the film cleverly plays with romantic and horror tropes, its standout performances, and the larger implications regarding wish fulfillment and consent. The show wraps up with each host sharing what's currently making them happy in the world of pop culture.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Obsession: A Horror-Rom-Com Mashup

• Premise:
  A familiar narrative—guy makes a magical wish for a woman to love him, and it goes horribly wrong—but distinguished by its execution and performances.

  • Obsession is Curry Barker's first feature-length film, blending his comedy background with horror elements.
  • The film’s strength lies not in special effects, but in the emotionally charged and terrifying lead performance by Indy Navarrete.

• Commentary on Tropes:
  The movie satirizes common romance film tropes (the pining “best friend guy,” the “dream girl” archetype), revealing their insidious side when amplified to horror extremes.

  • Quote:

    "It sends up so many tropes that I have talked about ad nauseam, about the things in movies that conditioned women to expect less and accept bare minimum."
    — Jordan Cruciola, [02:29]

2. Visual and Emotional Craft

• Direction/Thematic Execution:
  The panel is especially impressed by Barker’s visual choices—striking uses of shadow, darkness, and color to evoke mood, without falling into visual cliché. The film is emotionally raw but not trauma-porn, instead channeling “very raw emotions.”

  • Quote:

    "There’s a lot of color and lighting going on...but it’s beautiful and tragic and sad and God, is it so emotional. But not in a ‘oh, this is trauma’ kind of way."
    — Monica Castillo, [03:35]

• Subverting Horror Visuals:
  The film contributes new, memorable imagery to horror.

  • Memorable moment:

    "Like there’s a scene where she carries a flower pot. So creepy."
    — Glenn Weldon, [05:17]
    "One of the most unsettling deployments of a flower pot you could possibly come across."
    — Jordan Cruciola, [05:21]

3. Indy Navarrete’s Standout Performance

• Acting/Casting:
  Indy Navarrete’s portrayal of Nikki is described as “fearless,” imbuing the character with unique edge and depth, shifting between vulnerability and horrifying intensity as her love becomes all-consuming and dangerous.

  • Insight:
    The character was originally written as “a pure little sweet girl,” but Navarrete brought “sassiness” and an “edge.”

  • Quote:

    "She’s like slightly heckling guys. She’s giving as good as she gets...But the moment she had me was when she looks at the bartender, she’s like, 'Oh, yeah, close it out, babe.' I was like, okay, this girl’s a nuclear bomb."
    — Jordan Cruciola, [06:31]

  • Memorable Scene:

    "She’s laying next to Bear in bed and she screams at him at the top of her lungs to stay... her eyes are closed... she just yells that 'stay' octaves I didn’t know possible. And then everybody winces in the theater."
    — Monica Castillo, [08:23]

4. Metatextual and Thematic Depth

• Ideas of Consent & Toxic Relationships:
  The film explores issues of wish fulfillment, the absence of consent, and the emotional fallout of toxic relationships, grounding supernatural events in believable emotional stakes.

  • Quote:

    "Here we’re hitting on issues of consent at kind of an oblique angle, but we are definitely steering right into toxic relationships and mental illness."
    — Glenn Weldon, [10:16]

  • The script gives Bear (the protagonist) multiple chances to do the right thing, highlighting that his moral failure lies not in the wish, but in his refusal to take responsibility.

5. Reflection on Young Filmmaking and Industry Pathways

• New Talent Pipelines:
  The panel notes that Barker, and others like him, reflect a new, digital-first path to directorial opportunities.
  • Quote:

    "Now it can be: Be funny, be smart, stand out on your own, get noticed, get an opportunity, knock it out of the park like this guy did...your studio sanctioned notion of what a professional filmmaker looks like is stuck at...impossible for people to get and just runs people out of the industry before they're allowed to have this kind of success."
    — Jordan Cruciola, [12:32-13:09]

6. Standout Dialogues

• Moral Accountability:

  "He fails to take accountability for what is essentially an accident. That’s the thing. That’s the moral transgression. And I think that’s much chewier. It’s much more interesting."
  — Glenn Weldon, [15:01]

• Social Conditioning on Consent:

  "Just because you chose this for her doesn’t make it less real. And that...line just hit me so hard...the notion of that socialized encouragement of how you can coax someone or coerce someone towards something and tell yourself you’re still a good person the entire time."
  — Jordan Cruciola, [16:16]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• On Indy's performance:

  “Bravura. Absolutely fearless performance.” — Glenn Weldon [05:48]

• On horror imagery:

  “One of the most unsettling deployments of a flower pot you could possibly come across.” — Jordan Cruciola [05:21]

• On the moral landscape:

  “He bargains. He normalizes in those moments where he destroys everything...not the classic horror infrastructure here. It’s…he fails to take accountability for what is essentially an accident.” — Glenn Weldon [15:01]

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Recommendations – What’s Making Us Happy This Week

[19:56] Monica Castillo

Robert Caro’s The Power Broker (Book) & Instagram account segregationbydesign

• Monica finished Caro’s monumental book after a year, celebrates its reputation, and recommends the Instagram account for a digestible look at urban policy and the effects of urban renewal.

[21:25] Jordan Cruciola

Margot’s Got Money Troubles (Apple TV)

• Praises the performances of Elle Fanning and Michelle Pfeiffer. Finds the show relatable, emotionally rich, and “for everyone”—even those without direct experience of the show's premise.

• "Greg Kinnear has made me cry like three times. Greg Kinnear, the most everyman that is ever everyman."

[22:42] Glenn Weldon

Legends (Netflix)

• Describes it as a British take on The Wire, set in the early 1990s. Follows undercover customs agents infiltrating the UK drug trade, highlighting the tension and the political motivations underpinning the drug war. Steve Coogan stars in a rare dramatic role.

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Segment Timestamps

• Introduction and Set-up of Obsession: [00:19–02:00]
• Initial Impressions & Direction: [02:00–04:17]
• Subverting Tropes, Standout Scenes: [04:17–06:10]
• On Indy Navarrete’s Performance: [06:10–10:02]
• Themes of Consent, Toxic Relationships: [10:02–14:17]
• Filmmaking Landscape Discussion: [13:09–14:17]
• Characters, Pipeline, Youthful Directing: [11:03–14:17]
• On the Nature of Moral Failure: [14:17–16:16]
• Comedy Elements of the Wish Mechanism: [16:16–18:13]
• Wrap-up on Obsession Review: [18:13–18:34]
• What’s Making Us Happy This Week: [19:56–24:09]

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Final Thoughts

The panel unanimously praises Obsession for taking a familiar horror premise, imbuing it with contemporary resonance, and delivering a standout, deeply unsettling performance from Indy Navarrete. The film is lauded for its thematic ambition—particularly around wish fulfillment, agency, and emotional authenticity—while also offering lively humor and sharp critiques of genre conventions.

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Pop Culture Happy Hour: “We watch everything so you don’t have to—but this one? You might want to.”

Transcript

[Announcer]

This message comes from Capella University. That spark you feel, that's your drive for more. Capella University's flexpath learning format lets you earn your degree at your pace without putting life on pause. Learn [e-mail].

[Glenn Weldon]

The setup of the new film Obsession is a familiar one, but hear me out. Yes, guy makes a wish, wish comes true, things go bad. But what sets this twisted little movie apart is just how bad things go and how much of that badness is rooted, not special effects, but in the astonishing terrifying performance of its lead actress, who is playing a woman so desperately in love that she becomes a danger to, well, pretty much everything. I'm Glenn Weldon. Joining me today on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour is Jordan Cruciola. She's a writer and producer and the host of the podcast Feeling Seen on Maximum Fun. Hey, Jordan.

[Jordan Cruciola]

So glad to be back on our summer kickoff horror run that we're on right now.

[Glenn Weldon]

Yeah, it's a theme. Also with us is Monica Castillo, film Critic for the A.V. club. Welcome back, Monica. Sarah.

[Monica Castillo]

So thrilled to be here for this one and many more spooky scary movies.

[Jordan Cruciola]

We're running it back with this trio.

[Glenn Weldon]

The gang's all here. All right, let's do this. So if you are a comedy nerd, you've probably had Curry Barker come across your feed at some point in the past few years. He's part of a comedy duo that made viral sketches on TikTok and YouTube. Obsession is the first theatrical feature he's written and directed. And while it's creepy as hell, he's also brought his serious comedy chops to the mix. Obsession stars Michael Johnston as Bear, a schlubby music store employee who's in love with his co worker Nikki, played by Indy Navarrete. He can't summon the courage to confess his feelings, so he makes a wish on a cheap magic gag gift called a one wish willow for her to fall in love with him. Nikki does fall in love with him, but that love soon proves to be the kind that is jealous and all consuming and that comes with a body count. Obsession is in theaters now. Jordan, kick us off. What'd you think?

[Jordan Cruciola]

Really, really liked this one. Really impressed by it. I understand it a pretty modestly budgeted movie and looks excellent. It's a beautiful looking nighttime horror movie. These people must not have slept in the night for a couple of weeks on end making this. There's just so much about this movie that really fantastically skewers the tropes of like, the longing rom com behavior Best friend guy and like the sort of dream sassy, not quite manic pixie dream girl, but sort of like vision of this boy from right next to her who's been longing for her. And it just. It sends up so many tropes that I have talked about ad nauseam, about the things in movies that conditioned women to expect less and accept bare minimum. He made a really good movie. That on the surface is just gonna make you so upset. Like, I'll watch this again in three to five years. But if you want to like really engage with like a met metatextual read on, like how narrative indoctrination got us to this point in pop culture, it can also be that. So it's working on a lot of levels and like you said, certainly true. Indy Navarrete. Oh my God.

[Glenn Weldon]

Yeah, we'll talk more about her. But first, Monica, big picture thoughts. What'd you make of this?

[Monica Castillo]

Three to five years. I've already revisited this twice. I loved it so much.

[Jordan Cruciola]

Oh, God. Oh, that's a lot.

[Monica Castillo]

I really enjoyed it. I was also really surprised cause I wasn't familiar with Curry Barker stuff heading into it.

[Jordan Cruciola]

Me neither.

[Monica Castillo]

And so this is my first sort of like jumping into the deep end of his work. And wow, I was just so impressed just the way that he uses shadows and darkness, but also there's a lot of color and lighting going on so you're not totally lost in the dark. And it doesn't look like mud on screen, but it's beautiful and tragic and sad and God, is it so emotional. But not in a oh, this is trauma kind of way. This is, you know, just a unleash of just very raw emotions. I was so, so impressed with Indy. I know we're gonna get to her in a bit, but wow, this is her show all the way.

[Glenn Weldon]

Absolutely.

[Monica Castillo]

She owns this movie. She rocks. I'm so, so thrilled for her. And I can't wait to see what she does next in addition to Curry.

[Glenn Weldon]

Absolutely. I mean, this thing starts off, it hits some very familiar narrative beats. The Tales from the Dark side, the Twilight Zone, a tidy little morality play. So you expect it to hit those beats. It does take its time, I think it's fair to say in the early going. But it's doing that for a reason. It wants you to invest in these characters. It wants these characters to register. So you're there and you're nodding along and you're thinking, this has to happen. Then this has to happen. Then this has to happen. I know the arc of this, but then there Starts to be these little moments of weirdness, of just idiosyncrasy, of little bits of texture that set it apart, that signal to you, okay, we're not just gonna hit the beats. We reserve the right to find these little pockets of individuality, I guess. And then they start piling up those moments, stuff you haven't seen before. We call them tropes, but it's making fun of romantic tropes. It's also creating horror tropes. Right now they're horror triggers because they haven't been done to death. Like there's a scene where she carries a flower pot. So creepy.

[Jordan Cruciola]

One of the most unsettling deployments of a flower pot you could possibly come across.

[Glenn Weldon]

It's so weird because that's new. And you know how whenever you see anybody in a horror film, do the upside down crab walking from the Exorcist.

[Jordan Cruciola]

Right.

[Glenn Weldon]

It's creepy as hell. It's always creepy as hell.

[Monica Castillo]

It's unnatural.

[Glenn Weldon]

But your brain automatically slots it into this kind of pre existing groove that the Exorcist carved. And you're like, okay, this movie is carving some new slots.

[Jordan Cruciola]

There's like cousins to that thing that happen that are really effective.

[Monica Castillo]

Yeah.

[Glenn Weldon]

And I don't want to. We're gonna talk about Indiana. But like, you have to give over so much of your pet project. Your vision to give one actor to have this entire movie rest on her shoulders. Like, this movie doesn't work without Bravora. Absolutely fearless performance. Let's talk about Indy Navarretta here as Nikki.

[Jordan Cruciola]

An interesting jumping off is like the one thing I have heard Curry Barker say. I didn't even seek it out. It just popped up in front of me was he initially wrote her. It's just like a pure little sweet girl that like you couldn't deny how sweet and wonderful she was. And the way he said it was. And the reason why I don't want to read anymore is because he was like, you know, just a girl that any guy could fall in love with. He's like, but what Indy brought to the part was this sassiness, was this edge, this sharpness. Because when I was watching it, I was like, oh, she is like. She's like slightly heckling guys. She's giving as good as she gets. Like she's giving money to the unhoused person. But like the moment she had me was when she looks at the bartender, she's like, oh, yeah, close it out, babe. I was like, okay, this girl's a nuclear bomb. And that he saw that and he embraced it so smart to work with his actor and collaborate her, to let her just turn into the hurricane that she becomes in this movie. It was just an absolute breaks off, but does not go to a point, I feel like of cartoonish or caricature. There is agony inside every wild decision that Indy makes that Nikki makes as the movie builds and builds and builds. And the amount of just like horror inside the performance and the way that the movie tips us off to horror that is going on behind the scenes within Nikki, I thought was really smartly deployed. I mean, put her on the COVID of Van de Fair new now, next, like, this girl has arrived.

[Monica Castillo]

I really agree with Jordan's assessment of like the collaboration between Indy Navarrete and Curry Barker because I think there's a level of trust that an actor has to put in her direction.

[Jordan Cruciola]

There must have been like, we are mind melding on this. Absolutely.

[Monica Castillo]

You have to. I mean. Cause she goes in some really dark places and as well as some really just strange, wild places in terms of just like the intensity of her performances. I've seen it twice, so I've seen an audience react to it a few times now. And one of the parts that gets most people to jump is actually when she's still. She's laying next to Bear in bed and she screams at him at the top of her lungs to stay, to just keep him in bed.

[Jordan Cruciola]

I was wondering if you were gonna say that part if there's a second of this movie. Like some really graphically horrific things happen in this movie.

[Monica Castillo]

Oh yeah, plenty.

[Jordan Cruciola]

But like the thing that has pierced my nightmares is that scream.

[Monica Castillo]

Her eyes are closed. She's completely. It looks like she could be asleep, but she just. He's barely inching away from her, about to leave the bed, and she just yells that stay octaves. I didn't know possible. And then everybody winces in the theater. Like, oh my God, now you're scared for Bear. Now things are really looking uncertain. And it just crescendos from there. Like she continues. Holds that intensity. She keeps building on it. I'm just so impressed. I mean, you do get that sense of who her character was beforehand. You know, like you were saying Jordan, like this sort of soft, gentle person, but also, you know, assass. And like the jokes, but also the care and the tenderness and vulnerability. You get a sense of her relationship with Bear beforehand, her dynamics in the group ahead of that. And that's all within just a few minutes of meeting her.

[Jordan Cruciola]

That rolls so quick. It's really efficient how they handle that establishing.

[Monica Castillo]

And when things, it is a marked difference. Her body language changes. The way she holds her head is different. I also really love Curry. Barker does a lot of, like, backlighting with her once she kind of falls under the spell and you don't see her face and you don't see any part of her. It's just her body. It's just her outline. And she carries herself in such a different way that you already know, like, oh, this is not the Nikki that we met at the beginning of the movie.

[Jordan Cruciola]

This is not the Nikki that we saw five seconds ago.

[Monica Castillo]

But it is a way to show that Bear has fallen for this idea of her.

[Glenn Weldon]

Exactly.

[Monica Castillo]

It's not really her fullness. It's not who she is. It is the idea of her. And he settles for that. And for a while there, it looks like things might be okay, but then clearly things go horribly awry.

[Glenn Weldon]

Yeah. And both director and actor are fully in control of the stuff that's happening is funny and horrifying. But there is, as you both touched on, there is tragedy here. I mean, the last time we got together, talk about hokum, talked about how, you know, horror works on a metaphorical level. Takes metaphors, makes them literal. Here we're hitting on issues of consent at kind of an oblique angle, but we are definitely steering right into toxic relationships and mental illness. And it doesn't feel cheap or exploitative because those moments you're talking about where we see them suffering, and it's horrifying in a way that has nothing to do with blood and guts and violence. It has everything to do with sudden, horrifying empathy. Right. Like, and it's both director and really the actor who really bring that home.

[Jordan Cruciola]

Michael Johnston. I hated Bear. God, so much, and I'm inclined to hate Bear. I probably dislike Bear more than, like, the average Bear, but I was still afraid for him. Like, what he was doing was, like, there was that, oh, I'm just a passenger in my own story energy the entire time, where, my God, ladies and gentlemen, the amount of opportunities that Bear is given to step up and just be honest and just, like, be somebody in that moment who will take responsibility for their feelings.

[Monica Castillo]

Be a grown up.

[Jordan Cruciola]

Yeah. It was just like by the fourth time I looked at my friend who went to this with me and I just went, I am going to explode. I, like, whispered it in his ear. What the performance resulted in is such a perfect foil for what Nikki is doing. This little ensemble does a very good job of not competing with each other for their very Distinct character attributes because best friend collaborator Kuba Tomlinson, he's a really big personality and he kind of like, he sort of steals the space whenever he's on screen. And that kind of guy is exactly who would steal the space whenever he's in a room. He's a ham. He's a ham. He's a ham. You could feel like he maybe peaked in high school a little bit and like, it felt like something that a young person had to make because it felt like somebody who was of the age and like social experience of the ensemble that was on screen too. And I really appreciate that the digital pipeline of all these guys who are having all this success, Curry Barker, Kane Parsons, the Filippo Brothers, like that they are getting pulled out from a new pipeline. Even if the kind of result of that pipeline is a bunch of people who look the same as the people who came before the new pipeline. I appreciate at least that young people are given the cha. Being given the chance repeatedly. We can handle budgets, we can handle crews. We know what we're doing. You can't talk down to us and tell us that we don't know how because your studio sanctioned notion of what a professional filmmaker looks like is stuck at like, this strange level of experience that's like, impossible for people to get and just like runs people out of the industry before they're allowed to have this kind of success.

[Glenn Weldon]

Yeah, I mean, this is. That's a really good point, Jordan, because, I mean, the pipeline used to be, you go to film school, you spend a few years as a PA running coffee or schlepping a van around la. Now it can be. Be funny, be smart, stand out on your own, get noticed, get an opportunity, knock it out of the park like this guy did. Imagine if the world is a meritocracy for. For a moment, imagine if that happens. And I'm. I'm encouraged.

[Monica Castillo]

I don't know about this industry just yet, but it's nice when it happens. It's nice when it happens.

[Jordan Cruciola]

So much of Shiva, baby, is the youthful energy of Senate and Seligman collaborating together. And they got that right out of nyu. And there's something to be said for. Yeah, when you have your eye on the ball of a certain kind of emotionally racked experience of like, hey, I'm. I'm right in this phase of my life. So let me tell you all about it in this really fun way. We should give opportunities to that younger generational perspective to do so before they've, like, processed it and they're looking back and they're, like, reflecting on their time 10, 15 years ago. This movie feels so immediately of like a heartbreak or a longing. That's why it's such a brick to the face, as one could say.

[Glenn Weldon]

I'm not sure I have the right take on this, so check me on this. But I think this movie is really smart about its premise, which is a guy wishes a woman loved him. Now he wishes she loved him more than anyone in the world. But he's still just making a wish, Right? And it is a wish that removes consent. But he doesn't know that because he lives in our world where wishes don't work, wishes don't do anything. It is not a moral transgression to wish something. The script knows that. So it builds in for him those moments you mentioned of actual, really acute moral failure where he could. This script gives him so many opportunities to tell Nicky how he feels in the real world before the wish happens.

[Monica Castillo]

He doesn't do it, thankfully, so he

[Glenn Weldon]

could realize what he's done and decide to end it, but he doesn't. He bargains. He normalizes in those moments where he destroys everything. I think what's really fascinating about this, it's not the. He transgresses, so he gets his comeuppance. That's not the classic horror infrastructure here. It's. He fails to take accountability for what is essentially an accident. That's the thing. That's the moral transgression. And I think that's much chewier. It's much more interesting.

[Jordan Cruciola]

That's a good point.

[Monica Castillo]

Yeah. And I think Cooper Tomlinson has a really great moment where he kind of calls out Michael Johnston's character for continuing this sort of sham relationship that develops, and he's like, you know, things aren't going right, and it kind of looks like you're taking advantage of her. Like, he's actually having the conversation that it's really uncomfortable and, like, we probably don't see enough of in media. So it's actually kind of surprising that there is another voice that's kind of, you know, at least calling him out for the fact that he is writing this coattails of the wish, even though he's freaked out by it, doesn't fully agree with it, but hey, at the moment it kind of benefits him and it works for him, so he's going to enjoy that.

[Jordan Cruciola]

There's that moment that I think the first teaser, maybe that was put out for the movie is bear in the car calling the hotline for One Wish Willow. And he's like, can you take it back? I'd like to. I want to change my wish. And they're just like, yeah, hi. Like, how may I help you? Bear is struggling with what he has done, and he's trying to enumerate it clumsily. And the guy says to him, just because you chose this for her doesn't make it less real. And that. I don't know, that line just hit me so hard. Like, the bigness of it and the small preciseness of it was just so good. And that notion of, like, hey, man, just because you made, like, you could just hear, like, a buddy telling that to him, too, in, like, a. In, like, over a beer, being like, hey, dude, bro, Just because, like, you picked this for her, like, doesn't make it fake or something like that. Like, that, like, notion of that socialized encouragement of how you can coax someone or coerce someone towards something and tell yourself you're still a good person the entire time. And getting to that, what Glenn said about, like, the inability to just take responsibility and the number of opportunities that he has to do so, like, that one line, I was like, that was fire. Like, Curry Barker slayed it right there.

[Glenn Weldon]

Really, the stuff about the Wish and the gimmickry of the Wish is some of the funniest parts in this movie.

[Monica Castillo]

Oh, it's so good.

[Glenn Weldon]

That is where you can see the chops from his comedy troupe kind of kicking in. Like, if you're a comedy nerd like me, you've been seeing this guy around for a long time. I feel this kind of parasocial pride where I feel like, you know, I

[Jordan Cruciola]

told a director this the other day who was like, I'm just so happy for you as a millennial woman. I'm just like, I feel so proud of you. I get this. I get this.

[Glenn Weldon]

My indie band has gone mainstream, and I'm not mad at it. I'm like, yes, more people should be listening to this band.

[Monica Castillo]

Well deserved.

[Glenn Weldon]

Well, I mean, I think we agree. This movie hits on writing, it hits on directing, and it has at its center an unforgettable horror performance. No, scratch that. An unforgettable performance period. That is really worth checking out. So you got your weekend planned. Up next, what is making us happy this week?

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[Glenn Weldon]

Now it is time for our favorite segment of this week and every week. What is making us happy this week? Monica? What is making you happy this week?

[Monica Castillo]

So about a year ago I embarked on this really long project to finally get around to reading Robert Caro's the Power Broker. And I am so happy to report that about a year later I finally finished the Power Broker.

[Glenn Weldon]

It's the way that works.

[Monica Castillo]

Believe the hype. It's actually really good. It's also helped me appreciate a little bit more of my city's history, but it also has opened the door to bigger conversations about how policy affects day to day life. And especially as midterm elections are ramping up, paying attention to the local elections is just as important as it is the broader bigger picture. So I've also appreciated following the Instagram account segregationbydesign, which has a lot of videos kind of explaining Robert Moses's approach to public policy and what he did throughout the city. So if you're not into reading over a thousand page book and don't want to carry it around, there are little shorter videos. Learn a little bit about, you know, that whole side of the story of both New York City history, but also, you know, the effect of urban renewal throughout, you know, cities across the country.

[Glenn Weldon]

That's great. That is Robert Caro's the Power Broker, a book that has also been sitting on my virtual bedside for I'm gonna go for a decade now.

[Jordan Cruciola]

Is this thing like the size of the Encyclopedia Britannica?

[Monica Castillo]

It's definitely a doorstop.

[Glenn Weldon]

Thank you very much. Jordan, what is making you happy this week?

[Jordan Cruciola]

Well what is making me happy this week? I'm really enjoying Margot's got Money troubles on Apple tv. As I sit in anticipation for the return of Silo Season 3 on Apple TV. I am a sucker for Elle Fanning. I am so happy to see Michelle Pfeiffer and I just have found the ways in which it handles these very like today and yet timeless emotional slings and arrows of this young woman. And there's just been so many moments where I somebody who has not created an OnlyFans account to supplement income for the child that I have as a single mother, not being in that scenario, I still find myself really feeling like, wow, this really is like this is for everyone. You don't have to have created an OnlyFans account to understand the struggles that Margot has and the light and joy that she finds in all these things. And the way when you know that a friendship isn't gonna be the same going forward as it was in your past and the heartbreak and the loss of that. So yeah, I just think it's doing so. And Greg Kinnear has made me cry like three times. Greg Kinnear, the most everyman that is ever everyman blessing that he is for like a 40 minute dramedy that watching every episode, I feel like it's packing in so much and I'm just really loving it. It's making me very happy.

[Glenn Weldon]

Thank you very much. That is Margot's got money troubles on Apple tv and we've got a terrific episode about that very show which you can find a link to in our episode description. What's making me happy this week? Legends is a British series on Netflix that's kind of what if the Brits did the Wire or Task. It's about.

[Jordan Cruciola]

I've been wondering what this is. I've seen it pop up on my display. Okay, yeah.

[Glenn Weldon]

It's about a small task force of customs officials who go undercover to infiltrate and bring down some drug gangs in the UK in the early 90s. And the title Legends refers to the false identities that they have to adopt to go undercover. And it's about the physical and emotional costs of living undercover, you know, and doing bad things. And there is a really healthy British cynicism that keeps course correcting. Every time you think it's about to slop over into some of the kind of pat moralization that many American cop shows do. It reminds you of the Wire because it's very clear that the thing driving all of these anti drug efforts is politicians like Margaret Thatcher who want to score points and improve their reelection chances. And Steve Coogan plays the guy training the recruits and he kind of runs the ship. And this is one of those roles where he's playing it straight and he's also playing a tough guy.

[Monica Castillo]

Okay, you sold me on Steve Coogan.

[Jordan Cruciola]

Is this a period piece then, set in the era of Maggie 90s?

[Glenn Weldon]

It's set in the early 90s, yeah. And it's really, it's suspenseful, it moves along. That is Legends on Netflix, and that is what is making me happy this week. And that brings us to the end of our show. Jordan Crucciola, Monic Castillo, thanks for being here. We'll have you back the next time. There is a really great little indie horror.

[Jordan Cruciola]

I look forward to it every time.

[Monica Castillo]

Oh, yes, let's keep this going.

[Glenn Weldon]

Great to have you. And just a reminder that signing up for Pop Culture Happy Hour plus is a great way to support our show and public radio. And you get to listen to all of our episodes sponsor free. So please go find out more at plus.NPR. happy hour or visit the link in our show notes. This episode was produced by Liz Metzger and Mike Katsif and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy. And hello. Gimmen provides our theme music. Thank you all for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from npr. I am Glenn Weldon, and we will see you all next week.

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